- Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG) ONLY: all SWOG patients must be registered on SWOG-9007 ("Cytogenetic Studies in Leukemia Patients"); collection of the pretreatment bone marrow specimen (or of peripheral blood if the marrow is not aspirable) must be completed within 28 days before registration; the pretreatment specimen must be submitted to a SWOG-approved cytogenetics laboratory as described in protocol SWOG-9007; note that submission of bone marrow cytogenetic studies are required to calculate the IPSS score (stratification issue); in addition, cytogenetic response will be measured at follow-up requiring a second cytogenetic study at the end of protocol treatment; NOTE: In addition to SWOG-9007, SWOG patients must be offered participation in S9910, the leukemia centralized reference laboratories and tissue repositories ancillary study; If consent is given, collection of pretreatment blood and/or marrow specimens must be completed within 14 days prior to registration. If the patient consents to participate in S9910, pretreatment specimens of marrow and/or peripheral blood must be submitted to the Southwest Oncology Group Myeloid Repository at the University of New Mexico for cellular and molecular studies; S9910 also requests submission of remission and relapse specimens